BBC2/PBS Sept 26 No Direction Home

Subject: BBC2/PBS Sept 26 No Direction Home
From: The Shambles
Date: 20 Sep 05 - 01:26 PM

Martin Scorsese's documentary on Bob Dylan - called No Direction Home is to be the first programme to be simultaneously broadcast on BBC and PBS. On Monday 26 September.

9pm on BB2 on Monday and Tuesday.

Subject: RE: BBC2/PBS Sept 26 No Direction Home
From: katlaughing
Date: 20 Sep 05 - 05:09 PM

I've got it marked on my calendar, Shambles. I didn't know they wree going to show on both at the same time, though. That's kewl.

Subject: RE: BBC2/PBS Sept 26 No Direction Home
From: Bill Hahn//\\
Date: 20 Sep 05 - 07:04 PM

If you tune in to WFDU 89.1 FM this Sunday between 3-6 PM you will hear the Part 1 of No Direction Home--Bob Dylan. It is the piece that accomponies the DVD that is being released---and airs on PBS.

Ron Olesko will be hosting this week and I shall present Part 2 next week along with some wonderful guests in the studio---Mustard's Retreat.

You can listen on the web:   

http://www.wfdu.fm

Bill Hahn

Subject: RE: BBC2/PBS Sept 26 No Direction Home
From: Bill Hahn//\\
Date: 20 Sep 05 - 07:05 PM

I meant to add---that is 3-6 PM Eastern Time in the U S

Bill Hahn

Subject: RE: BBC2/PBS Sept 26 No Direction Home- Bob Dylan
From: The Shambles
Date: 21 Sep 05 - 05:53 AM

BBC 4 is showing no less than seven (yes count them) Bob Dylan-related programmes.

On Saturday Martin Scorsese's The Last Waltz.
Monday has Dylan's Legends.
Sing Dylan is on Tuesday.
Dylan in the Madhouse and Don'r Look Back are on Wednesday.
Arena - Highway 61 Revisited is on Thursday.
And the tribute concert from The Barbican - Talking Bob Dylan Blues (and featuring Martin Carthy) - is on Friday.

Subject: RE: BBC2/PBS Sept 26 No Direction Home- Bob Dylan
From: Paco Rabanne
Date: 21 Sep 05 - 06:51 AM

Tune in and be amazed at how much Bob robbed from the great Donovan!

Subject: RE: BBC2/PBS Sept 26 No Direction Home- Bob Dylan
From: greg stephens
Date: 21 Sep 05 - 07:02 AM

Never mind Donovan. Nobody seems to recognise how much material(and, more importantly, performance style) Dylan appropriated from Mary O'Hara in the cold winter of 1962

Subject: RE: BBC2/PBS Sept 26 No Direction Home- Bob Dylan
From: The Shambles
Date: 21 Sep 05 - 07:13 AM

The line-up for The Barbican tribute concert (BBC 4 8.30 - 10.30pm) is.

Billy Bragg
KT Tunstall
Martin Carthy
Barb Jungr

Plus (it says here) music from:

Robyn Hitchcock
Willy Mason
Odetta
Liam Clancy
Roy Harper

Subject: RE: BBC2/PBS Sept 26 No Direction Home- Bob Dylan
From: GUEST,Guest, Big Tim
Date: 21 Sep 05 - 10:48 AM

Greg, what rubbish.

Mary O'Hara spent the "cold winter" of 1962 in a convent in England, which she entered in April of that year. She stayed there for 12 unbroken years. She had totally given up singing at that point.

Besides, even if Dylan had learned something from her, which I doubt, and certainly not in winter '62, what would have been wrong with that? Mary had to learn the traditional songs from someone,in her case notably Séan Óg O'Tuama. I have Mary's email address but I wouldn't waste her time by raising such a silly question with her.

I'm quite surprised to see Martin Carthy on the tribute show as he too has criticised Dylan for "stealing" the tune of "Nottamun Town" from him. (In fact it seems more likely that he got it from Jean Ritchie, who according to Dylan's biograpger Howard Sounes,got a payment of $10,000 for her "arrangement" of the tune).

I'm most looking forward most to seeing a clip from "Madhouse on Castle Street", which I thought had been wiped decades ago.

Subject: RE: BBC2/PBS Sept 26 No Direction Home- Bob Dylan
From: WFDU - Ron Olesko
Date: 21 Sep 05 - 10:49 AM

Just to clarify Bill's post, the radio special we are airing is a "companion" to the PBS special and it is stand-alone program, not the soundtrack to the film. It is a syndicated show, hosted by David Dye, and is the "official radio bootleg". Interviews with Dave Van Ronk, Carolyn Hester and more.   The special will be airing on other stations across the country.

Subject: RE: BBC2/PBS Sept 26 No Direction Home- Bob Dylan
From: WFDU - Ron Olesko
Date: 21 Sep 05 - 10:53 AM

The DVD was released here in the U.S. yesterday. I watched Part 1 last evening and was very impressed.   Even the non-Dylan fans should enjoy all the great "folk" footage.   Part 1 does a good job of documenting the Greenwich Village folk scene of the era. This film has been in the making for some time and features commentary from the late Dave Van Ronk and Allen Ginsberg in interviews recorded before their deaths.   Also good to hear from Mark Spoelstra and others.

Subject: RE: BBC2/PBS Sept 26 No Direction Home- Bob Dylan
From: greg stephens
Date: 21 Sep 05 - 11:52 AM

Big Tim: re Mary O'Hara. Sorry, I was joking, which doesnt always work in this format. I merely picked the performer with whom Dylan would have been least likely to interact. Because, let's face it, people do go rather OTT from time to time about Dylan's influences.
And I was also having a dig at M O'H, whose opinions on traditional folk music I found downright offensive.

Subject: RE: BBC2/PBS Sept 26 No Direction Home- Bob Dylan
From: Jim McLean
Date: 21 Sep 05 - 11:52 AM

My wife, Alison Chapman McLean, has been approached by both the BBC people from Arena (the Scorsese film) and the Barbican Tribute for the use of her photographs of Dylan, Carthy and others which she took in the Troubadour from '62 onwards. To see more of her Troubadour pictures, check out
http://www.richardandmimi.com/troubadour.html

Subject: RE: BBC2/PBS Sept 26 No Direction Home- Bob Dylan
From: Paco Rabanne
Date: 21 Sep 05 - 11:54 AM

I wasn't joking about his blatant rip off of the divine Donovan!

Subject: RE: BBC2/PBS Sept 26 No Direction Home- Bob Dylan
From: greg stephens
Date: 21 Sep 05 - 11:56 AM

Is there really some Madhouse in Castle Street footage in existence? I thought it was dead and gone. How about the Dylan song about the swan which appeared in that show, but was never used since? Has that reappeared?

Subject: RE: BBC2/PBS Sept 26 No Direction Home- Bob Dylan
From: WFDU - Ron Olesko
Date: 21 Sep 05 - 12:00 PM

Ripping off "divine" Donovan?? Sounds like somebody has been smoking bananna peels again.

Subject: RE: BBC2/PBS Sept 26 No Direction Home- Bob Dylan
From: Lonesome EJ
Date: 21 Sep 05 - 12:15 PM

Come on, Ron. Are you trying to tell us that Chimes of Freedom isn't a direct steal of Try and Catch the Wind?

Subject: RE: BBC2/PBS Sept 26 No Direction Home- Bob Dylan
From: WFDU - Ron Olesko
Date: 21 Sep 05 - 12:54 PM

Sorry EJ - you would have to say that Bob Dylan could travel into the future if you believe that.

Dylan released Chimes of Freedom in June of 1964, Donovan's Try and Catch the Wind came out in 1965.

Subject: RE: BBC2/PBS Sept 26 No Direction Home- Bob Dylan
From: Les in Chorlton
Date: 21 Sep 05 - 01:13 PM

As Dylan returns to the piano, his early influences from the mighty Richard become clear, though not obviously from the music!

Subject: RE: BBC2/PBS Sept 26 No Direction Home
From: WFDU - Ron Olesko
Date: 21 Sep 05 - 10:25 PM

You will see the influences in the film! Really well done. I am amazed at the footage they found, not just of Dylan, but of the folk scene.

Subject: RE: BBC2/PBS Sept 26 No Direction Home
From: bobad
Date: 21 Sep 05 - 10:34 PM

"This film has been in the making for some time and features commentary from the late Dave Van Ronk and Allen Ginsberg in interviews recorded before their deaths."

Too bad, I'd really like to hear the one's recorded after their deaths.

Subject: RE: BBC2/PBS Sept 26 No Direction Home
From: Ron Davies
Date: 21 Sep 05 - 10:47 PM

I understand that in the film they go into Dylan's self-manufactured early history, with colorful mentors like Chicago bluesman "Blind" Arvella Gray, etc, brought in to establish Dylan's credentials. Any truth to that?

Subject: RE: BBC2/PBS Sept 26 No Direction Home
From: WFDU - Ron Olesko
Date: 21 Sep 05 - 11:12 PM

"Too bad, I'd really like to hear the one's recorded after their deaths."

My faith in humanity is saved. I just knew someone would make the joke!!!!


Yes Ron, they do go into that and Dylan comments about it. I won't spoil it!!!

Subject: RE: BBC2/PBS Sept 26 No Direction Home
From: GUEST,Guest, Big Tim
Date: 22 Sep 05 - 02:36 AM

Thanks for clearing that one up Greg!

Next week's "Radio Times" has gone Dylan mad, featuring him on the cover and umpteen articles inside the mag. It does say that "Castle Street" is in fact now lost, but I thought I saw elsewhere that a fragment survived and will be featured. Time will tell...

Subject: RE: BBC2/PBS Sept 26 No Direction Home
From: The Shambles
Date: 23 Sep 05 - 03:26 PM

Time indeed will tell.

Subject: RE: BBC2/PBS Sept 26 No Direction Home
From: GUEST
Date: 23 Sep 05 - 08:26 PM

Isn't "official bootleg" a bit of an oxymoron?

Have you ever noticed there aren't many blues musicians who cite Dylan as an influence?

Subject: RE: BBC2/PBS Sept 26 No Direction Home
From: WFDU - Ron Olesko
Date: 23 Sep 05 - 09:59 PM

gee, I wonder why that is.

Subject: RE: BBC2/PBS Sept 26 No Direction Home
From: The Shambles
Date: 25 Sep 05 - 08:49 AM

The Under Milk Wood Blues Band from South Wales consider his work to very influential. Especially by their lead singer Bible-Black Jones.

Subject: RE: BBC2/PBS Sept 26 No Direction Home
From: GUEST
Date: 25 Sep 05 - 11:26 AM

I fully expect this show to be about as iconoclastic about Dylan as The Motorcycle Diaries was about Che (the film was a beautiful Don Quixote sort of Latin American fairy tale version of Ernesto's "conversion" to Che).

That is to say, I expect yet another reverential hagiography of St. Bob.

Too bad no one has the guts to do a critical (in a positive sense), unbiased review of his life while he is alive--and no, I don't mean one of those schlock, gossipy "unauthorized biography" sorts of things. Those have already been done, rather uncritically for the most part.

Subject: RE: BBC2/PBS Sept 26 No Direction Home
From: GUEST,guest2
Date: 25 Sep 05 - 02:00 PM

sounds like the previous guest has a few skeletons in his closet that he still can't shake.   Great to rush to judgement, and no matter what the film will entail this little troll will have his opinion made up

Subject: RE: BBC2/PBS Sept 26 No Direction Home
From: GUEST
Date: 25 Sep 05 - 02:32 PM

Oooh, guest2, I must have hit a nerve in a big Dylan fan.

Look, I really love a lot of Dylan songs. I've never considered him more than a mediocre musician (compared to many of his contemporaries), and of course, we all know he is no singer (hence, not the greatest "singer-songwriter" of his generation).

The last album I bought of Dylan's I thought was really excellent was 'Desire'. In the decade between 'Blonde on Blonde' and 'Desire' I wasn't all that impressed with much of Dylan's work. And since 'Desire' I haven't been impressed with him at all--just the opposite. He seems to be a musician long past his own shelf life, living off his laurels. His fan base, to me, has always been the sorts of folks who lined the parade route to cheer on their beloved Emperor With No Clothes. That goes double for the music journals and journalists who have made lots of money over the years perpetuating the "voice of a generation" myth.

I think Scorcese is egomaniacal, to the detriment of many his works. Yet, that doesn't stop film critics and his movie fans from declaring him "the filmmaker of his generation". And BTW, I loved 'The Last Waltz'.

People of a certain age and education level should really be able to distinguish truth from hype. I think one of Dylan's main problems with controlling his own image, is he never did manage to do that for himself, much less his fan base (which I believe he proved in 'Chronicles').

Instead of taking pot shots at me, why not actually say something of substance?

Your response makes me think you may be one of those Dylan worshippers, who prefers to hear no criticism about St. Bob.

Subject: RE: BBC2/PBS Sept 26 No Direction Home
From: GUEST,Guest 2
Date: 25 Sep 05 - 03:48 PM

Because you are the hypocrit here. Without even watching the show, you have already condemned it and Dylan. Your last statent proves it.

I'm not a fan of Dylans. I could care less. I just can't stand cowardly hypocrits who talk out of their butt.

Subject: RE: BBC2/PBS Sept 26 No Direction Home
From: GUEST,Guest, Big Tim
Date: 25 Sep 05 - 04:18 PM

Why stop at sainthood? I'd make him God.

Subject: RE: BBC2/PBS Sept 26 No Direction Home
From: GUEST
Date: 25 Sep 05 - 04:40 PM

I'm not talking out my ass guest2. I'm talking about what I've read about the film so far, and what I know about the Dylan myth and the Scorcese myth. That isn't so very difficult to do, if you think about what you are going to see in advance of seeing it, rather than simply react to it as if it were just any old concert footage revue.

The claims being made by the filmmaker and the reviewers, are that this film is about the transformation of Robert Zimmerman into Bob Dylan. So there is good reason why I compared it in my first post to The Motorcycle Diaries, which is also a film purportedly about the transformation of Ernesto Guevara into Commandante Che.

The film sounds as if it is mythologizing, in the same way Motorcycle Diaries' does, rather than offering any new insights into the transformative process of Dylan being consumed by his own self-mythologizing. Dylan (in his youth) was both blind and naive in his ambitions to be noticed, attended to as a star and celebrity, and adored by fans and critics and, well...everyone.

I think the very best, most insightful piece of documentary work ever produced about Dylan was Sam Shepard's "Rolling Thunder Logbook". It is truly the best piece I've ever encountered that puts Dylan's self-mythologizing into a coherent perspective (maybe because Sam Shepard is much better at the game than Dylan could ever hope to be).

You take it from there, guest2.

Subject: RE: BBC2/PBS Sept 26 No Direction Home
From: GUEST,Guest 2
Date: 25 Sep 05 - 04:45 PM

watch the film and then talk - if you can keep an open mind

Subject: RE: BBC2/PBS Sept 26 No Direction Home
From: GUEST
Date: 25 Sep 05 - 04:48 PM

An open mind about what, exactly?

From Sam Shepard's 'Rolling Thunder Logbook':

"Dylan has invented himself. He's made himself up from scratch. That is, from the things he had around him and inside him. Dylan is an invention of his own mind. The point isn't to figure him out but to take him in. He gets into you anyway, so why not just take him in? He's not the first one to have invented himself, but he's the first one to have invented Dylan..."

Subject: RE: BBC2/PBS Sept 26 No Direction Home
From: GUEST,Guest 2
Date: 25 Sep 05 - 04:54 PM

You make it sound that inventing oneself is a bad thing. Everyone does it - you are doing it right now. Who gives a toss?   Watch the movie and keep an open mind.   There is nothing wrong with hype. He sold records, which was his job. Why would anyone care if he "invented himself"?

Subject: RE: BBC2/PBS Sept 26 No Direction Home
From: GUEST
Date: 25 Sep 05 - 04:56 PM

You seem very proud of your ignorance and superficiality guest2.

When discussing cultural icons, perhaps you should learn what the words mean before you go making a fool of yourself in public.

Subject: RE: BBC2/PBS Sept 26 No Direction Home
From: GUEST,Guest 2
Date: 25 Sep 05 - 04:58 PM

Nice comeback. It doesn't work

Subject: RE: BBC2/PBS Sept 26 No Direction Home
From: GUEST
Date: 25 Sep 05 - 05:05 PM

You are just being combative guest2, for no reason whatsoever. I'm here to discuss the film, the man, and the myth. Not banter with an dumbass. Bye bye.

Subject: RE: BBC2/PBS Sept 26 No Direction Home
From: GUEST,Guest 2
Date: 25 Sep 05 - 05:09 PM

You arent discussing anything... you made a statement that you wish everyone to take as gospel. When challenged, you insult other peoples intelligence. Shame on you. That is know way to have a discussion   Glad to see you are leaving.

Subject: RE: BBC2/PBS Sept 26 No Direction Home
From: shepherdlass
Date: 25 Sep 05 - 05:10 PM

Guest2 - have you never reinvented yourself (when starting a new job, or playing a new club)? It's pretty much part of being human, isn't it?

Subject: RE: BBC2/PBS Sept 26 No Direction Home
From: shepherdlass
Date: 25 Sep 05 - 05:14 PM

And isn't it exciting that we'll see his Bobness giving a proper interview to an equally influential artist?

Subject: RE: BBC2/PBS Sept 26 No Direction Home
From: GUEST
Date: 25 Sep 05 - 05:23 PM

All performing artists invent their own personas. That is nothing new. It is also nothing new for them to have their personas (and the self-created myths used to project that persona) examined as part of their art.

That was the whole point of my mentioning Sam Shepard and Che Guevara, all cultural icons involved in self-mythologizing themselves into cultural icons in the societies and times they lived in.

As I understand it, sheperdlass, His Bobness is not interviewed by Martin Scorcese in the film, though if I am wrong about that, I'm sure someone will come along and tell us.

I am really looking forward to the film, especially to the new footage of both Dylan and the folk revival scene in the US and Britain.

I'm always curious as to why, in these threads about Dylan, people love to invoke his icon status, but never discuss it?

Subject: RE: BBC2/PBS Sept 26 No Direction Home
From: GUEST,Guest 2
Date: 25 Sep 05 - 05:27 PM

Sure I have! That is the point I've been trying to make. So many people seem to have a problem with an artist creating an image... who really cares? The product is what they will be judged on

Subject: RE: BBC2/PBS Sept 26 No Direction Home
From: GUEST,Guest 2
Date: 25 Sep 05 - 05:29 PM

Maybe because Dylan fans really don't buy into the icon status crap. It seems to be an issue for some non-fans.

Subject: RE: BBC2/PBS Sept 26 No Direction Home
From: shepherdlass
Date: 25 Sep 05 - 05:35 PM

And I suspect that Dylan himself doesn't buy the icon status crap.

Even if Scorsese isn't actually putting the questions, his creative input must have been reassuring to someone so notoriously wary of interviews.

Subject: RE: BBC2/PBS Sept 26 No Direction Home
From: GUEST
Date: 25 Sep 05 - 05:37 PM

For people so interested in this film, I have to say, you don't seem to know much about the it's subject.

Subject: RE: BBC2/PBS Sept 26 No Direction Home
From: GUEST,Guest 2
Date: 25 Sep 05 - 05:50 PM

Another hypocritcal statement. You would be surprised

Subject: RE: BBC2/PBS Sept 26 No Direction Home
From: GUEST
Date: 25 Sep 05 - 08:54 PM

Surprisingly, it isn't that easy to find complete reviews of the film online. I'm going to post in it's completeness, the Salon review (since it is a subscription website) for posterity's sake here, then provide links to some others I've found today while journeying around the web looking for reviews.

No direction here
The Bob Dylan-controlled documentary of himself, "No Direction Home," has some odd moments -- Scorsese playing Dylan? -- but offers little new insight into his Bobness.

- - - - - - - - - - - -
By Steven Hart

Sept. 25, 2005 | "No Direction Home: Bob Dylan" (which airs on PBS Monday and Tuesday) is, like the work of its subject, part fraud, part tease and part revelation, shot through with flashes of genius.

A great deal of time, care and talent went into its making, and yet it seems as sloppily made as the tossed-off albums that all but buried Dylan's reputation in the 1980s. Over the course of two installments and three and a half hours -- relentlessly focused on the first five or so years of Dylan's career -- "No Direction Home" offers little that is new and much that is already grindingly familiar to fans of His Bobness. And yet it is tremendously watchable and occasionally rewarding, even if it's apt to leave most viewers with the feeling that they have been served appetizers and dessert without getting so much as a glimpse of the main course.

Is it necessary, in the four decades since Dylan released his first album, to explain why a rock musician deserves a slot in the "American Masters" pantheon? A friend of mine recently spent a frustrating evening with a young woman who said, "Look, I know Dylan's a legend and all, but what's the big deal? Why's he important?"

The only response to such doubters is: If you value popular music as a venue for serious artistic purpose, thank Bob Dylan, who infused rock and folk music with blazing intellectual energy and visionary poetry. If you look back on the late '60s and early '70s as a lost era of pop music ambition and innovation, then thank Bob Dylan, whose 1960s albums were the benchmark that motivated artists across the pop spectrum, from the Beatles and the Rolling Stones to Stevie Wonder and Marvin Gaye, to stake claims for themselves as something more than purveyors of disposable junk music. And if you despair of the legions of puling singer-songwriters who followed in his wake ... well, don't blame Bob Dylan. The man can't help it if his imitators lack his outsize talent.

Recognize also that this talent came along at a fleeting, never-to-be-repeated moment when the record industry, baffled by rock music but eager to exploit its commercial potential, was still loose enough to give somebody like Dylan the space to grow, and when radio was still capable of making Dylan's 1965 breakthrough "Like a Rolling Stone" into a cultural watershed as well as a pop music landmark. Combine that with a manager, Albert Grossman, who shrewdly gave Dylan mass-market credibility by encouraging mainstream performers to release sweetened versions of his songs while preserving Dylan's own albums as pillars of harsh integrity. By the time mass-market listeners were ready to answer the challenge posed by the promoters at Columbia Records -- "Nobody sings Dylan like Dylan" -- their ears had been made ready by the likes of the Byrds and Peter, Paul and Mary. In the fragmented, highly corporatized music industry of today, there may be other artists who could match Dylan's talent, but none will ever equal his impact.

Dylan parted ways with Grossman decades ago, but the emphasis he placed on image manipulation and mystique maintenance was a constant throughout Dylan's career, and "No Direction Home" is best viewed as another addition to Dylan's hall of mirrors. Even the credits are deceptive. This is not "A Martin Scorsese Picture," except in the loosest sort of auteurist terms. As last week's Wall Street Journal made clear, "No Direction Home" is an in-house project from Bob Dylan's management team, conceived as a way to frame Dylan's legacy while the man himself is still around to supervise the work.

The rather desultory interviews with a glowing Joan Baez, a haggard Allen Ginsberg and other figures from Dylan's career were conducted not by Scorsese but by Dylan's manager and staff -- probably just as well, in light of Scorsese's fumbling attempts to interview members of the Band in "The Last Waltz" (a direct inspiration for the earnestly fatuous Marty DiBergi in "This Is Spinal Tap"). The fact that Ginsberg died in April 1997 gives an idea of how long this project has been in the works. The interviews with Dylan himself show the maestro in a disarmingly straightforward mood, offering flashes of the quiet wit and wordplay that make his recent "Chronicles" such an engrossing read.

Scorsese was brought into the project late and allowed to assemble the film only from archival materials vetted by Jeff Rosen, Dylan's manager. Scorsese's presence is most clearly felt in a moment of almost sublime goofiness -- a re-creation of Dylan's notoriously obtuse 1963 speech to the National Emergency Civil Liberties Committee, with Scorsese doing a Dylan impersonation that wouldn't pass muster at a high school talent show. He even drops the punch line, when Dylan baffled and offended the audience by claiming to feel kinship with Lee Harvey Oswald.

Scorsese follows a skeletal chronology of Dylan's progress from the iron hills of northern Minnesota to the folk clubs of Greenwich Village, but frequently leaps ahead to the clamorous performances of 1965 and 1966, when Dylan enraged the folkie faithful by dropping the Woody Guthrie poses and reinventing himself as a frizzy-haired rock hipster, culminating in the creation of "Like a Rolling Stone." After years of watching grainy bootlegs of "Eat the Document," the aborted documentary of Dylan's 1966 swing through England, it's great to have this footage in a clean, well-mastered form. I'm sorry to report that Scorsese doesn't include the gruesome limousine ride with John Lennon, which shows Dylan deathly ill from a combination of exhaustion and drugs while the Smart Beatle sits frozen behind his shades, clearly terrified that he might say something unhip.

It's all very watchable, but this is such familiar stuff. Heavy-breathing rock critics like Greil Marcus and Paul Williams have devised a veritable Stations of the Cross story line for this period, ending with the motorcycle accident that Dylan used to take himself off the celebrity treadmill and try his hand at something approaching a normal life. (Scorsese, curiously, omits the accident, which would at least have given "No Direction Home" a more shapely narrative.) Personally, I find the post-accident Dylan far more interesting as an artist and a human being -- given a choice between the icy hipster glaring from the cover of "Highway 61 Revisited" and the regretful, passionate husband of "Blood on the Tracks" and "Desire," I'll go for the more mature version. The magnesium-flare brilliance of "Highway 61" and its mid-1960s companions is undeniable, but it doesn't shed much warmth.

"No Direction Home" tells us nothing about Dylan we didn't already know, or thought we knew, but it could hardly have turned out otherwise, given the circumstances of its creation. "I don't know what he thought about," Baez says at one point. "I only know what he gave us." In "No Direction Home," Dylan gives us something to while away a few hours of viewing time, nothing more.


salon.com

Subject: RE: BBC2/PBS Sept 26 No Direction Home
From: GUEST
Date: 25 Sep 05 - 09:19 PM

Roger Ebert's review

From a link at The Onion, no less, comes this pithy review

Subject: RE: BBC2/PBS Sept 26 No Direction Home
From: GUEST
Date: 25 Sep 05 - 09:53 PM

A good review from the Denver Post

An American Prospect review? Here ya go...probably the best review of the bunch.

Subject: RE: BBC2/PBS Sept 26 No Direction Home
From: GUEST,Guest, Big Tim
Date: 26 Sep 05 - 02:15 AM

I had a feeling that this thread would eventually degenerate into irrelevances about Dylan inventing myths ("I ran away 14 times and got caught and brought back all but once"), etc. (What about Ramblin Jack - a Jewish middle class "cowboy" from NYC).

The important thing about Dylan, what makes him so great and so special, is simple: he has written far more big songs han anyone else. That is of course a matter of opinion but many share it.

Subject: RE: BBC2/PBS Sept 26 No Direction Home
From: Paco Rabanne
Date: 26 Sep 05 - 03:43 AM

I re-invented myself as a man once. No good though, my tits are too big too hide.
                      Love,
                     Geraldine xxx

Subject: RE: BBC2/PBS Sept 26 No Direction Home
From: GUEST
Date: 26 Sep 05 - 07:35 AM

I think you miss the point there, Big Tim. Inventing the myths, lying about his background--those things apparently matter a great deal to the man who did those things: Bob Dylan. He went a-courtin us, not the other way around.

To some of us who don't share your enthusiasitic opionion about his body of work, it's the much more interesting conversation to have--the one about the icon building and icon smashing by Dylan himself. Nobody made him do those things. It's HIS LEGACY.

Subject: RE: BBC2/PBS Sept 26 No Direction Home
From: GUEST
Date: 26 Sep 05 - 07:59 AM

Newsday's review

Subject: RE: BBC2/PBS Sept 26 No Direction Home
From: WFDU - Ron Olesko
Date: 26 Sep 05 - 09:31 AM

Why is it so important as to why Dylan went "a-courtin" us?   Show me one artist who was discovered and never was involved with creating their image.

I'm not sure if Dylan is the kind of person you would want to count on as a friend, but since I never met the guy - I really don't care who manufactured the image. That is not the reason why I listen to his music. Most Hollywood actors have manufactured their image as well. It has nothing to do with being "honest", nor is it a character flaw.   I think most of us try to discover what we are.

Like any "authorized" biography, you won't get the true dirt behind the subject. I personally think it was a brilliant move to have Dylan interviewed by Jeff Rosen.   Dylan comes across more relaxed and open than in any other interview I've seen with him. I can certainly open up with my close friends, more so than I could to a total stranger.

Personally, I think Dylan is an incredibly creative songwriter.   I have the same feeling about a handful of others.   Dylan also released a lot of trash.   He is not a "God" and I don't think most of his fans treat him that way.

You can't be honest with yourself if you deny the impact that Dylan had on music and culture.   However, artists likes Dylan and the Beatles are merely links in the chain. They may have been a catalyst, but somebody had to mix the ingredients. They also started a chain reaction.

Subject: RE: BBC2/PBS Sept 26 No Direction Home
From: GUEST,Guest, Big Tim
Date: 26 Sep 05 - 09:45 AM

Personally I don't believe that Dylan ever meant all that myth stuff to be believed or taken seriously. Surely he was intelligent enough to realise that in the modern world everything is well ducumented: parent's occupations, birth certificates, church records, school records, college records, etc. He was just putting us on a little bit. I've known that such stories weren't true for about 35 years. It's time to move on and leave the personality aside and judge him only on his output. Bob wants privacy and he deserves it. Nobody owns him ("I'm nobody's puppet and nobody pulls my strings", 1986).

All Dylan did was write songs and issue records. His fans and the media did the rest.

Subject: RE: BBC2/PBS Sept 26 No Direction Home
From: The Shambles
Date: 26 Sep 05 - 08:37 PM

Well I hope that I enjoy Part 2 as much as I enjoyed Part 1.

It was nice to see and hear (again) - the early songs performed in context.

Subject: RE: BBC2/PBS Sept 26 No Direction Home
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 26 Sep 05 - 08:50 PM

good old bob
just the job
for a monday night
when you're feeling shite
I'll let him be on my screen
with his mercury mouth
and red white and blue shoe strings
and ric's a blues guitarist
she wears an Egyptian ring.
tales of the cafe wha and gerdes folk city
and monday night
won't be quite so shitty.

Subject: RE: BBC2/PBS Sept 26 No Direction Home
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 26 Sep 05 - 09:00 PM

The narrative structure - forward and backward, and background and reminiscence, all rearranged - was surprising, but I found it was pretty effective. I suspect it might have been confusing to some people who aren't Dylan's generation, but a film about Dylan which wasn't confusing wouldn't really be in keeping with the man.

I'm looking forward to the second part - and I hope the video recorder worked, because I want to see the first part again, and the whole thing together.

Subject: RE: BBC2/PBS Sept 26 No Direction Home
From: The Shambles
Date: 27 Sep 05 - 06:04 AM

The quote from the film I kept remembering was - 'he wrote good songs'. It was delivered almost apologetically - but it pretty much sums the whole thing up.

Subject: RE: BBC2/PBS Sept 26 No Direction Home
From: GUEST
Date: 27 Sep 05 - 08:01 AM

The way it was edited was a bit too precious, I thought. But I loved the part about the Village. The most interesting part of the entire program. Well worth it, just to see that clip of Maria Muldaur! It definitely took me back to my own youthful days of wandering round the Village. I was too young to get into the bars, but still! There it was--Cafe Wha in all it's glory!

It was also good to see the old clips of Dylan performing. I had forgotten how uncomfortable he seemed on a stage back then. Also, watching the program reminded me of how much I always disliked a lot of his early songs (I'm a bigger fan of his rock phase than his so-called 'folk' phase). I had a friend who was a huge Dylan freak, and she was always wanting me to sing 'Blowin in the Wind' and 'Don't Think Twice...' when we'd jam--both songs I HATED.

In fact, there wasn't really anything I liked much at the time off his first album, and I certainly didn't see what all the fuss was about. But then, I was never musically enamored with the whole faux folk revival scene in the Village anyway. It wasn't until I heard 'A Hard Rain...' I thought the man had any chops whatsoever. His other so-called political stuff I was never impressed with--it seemed much too earnest and reactionary (songs like 'Masters of War' and 'Blowin in the Wind' and 'The Times They are...').

God Baez was awful! She sounds so much better now!

But where was Ramblin' Jack? How can the Dylan story be told with absolutely no mention of Ramblin' Jack?

Subject: RE: BBC2/PBS Sept 26 No Direction Home
From: GUEST
Date: 27 Sep 05 - 08:24 AM

One more thing--I just plain disagree that pop music at the time Dylan was trying to get on the charts was awful. I was listening at the time to Sam Cooke, Roy Orbison, Ray Charles, Marvin Gaye, the Ronettes, The Shirelles, The Crystals, Tony Bennett (I still love him--just like my parents loved him at the time), The Drifters, and Little Stevie Wonder...

Sure, my tastes ran heavily towards R & B and soul, but I loved the music of the 60s everyone claims was so awful. Makes me think they only heard what was playing on the radio, or are mimicking what they have heard other people say about that era.

There was no musical wasteland at the time on the pop charts--the musical world had already begun the most major shift of the last half of the 20th century, and it had nothing to do with Dylan or the faux folkies like Baez, et al. It was the gradual easing of the color lines on radio.

And just for the record--I loved Gene Vincent, Joey Dee and the Starlighters, and by 1966 one of my favorite bands were the Young Rascals, and one of my favorite "singer-songwriters" was Johnny Rivers.

Subject: RE: BBC2/PBS Sept 26 No Direction Home
From: WFDU - Ron Olesko
Date: 27 Sep 05 - 09:31 AM

Guest, concerning the pop music that was happening when Dylan was getting on the charts - the names you mention are surely good, but they weren't on the "charts" during the period. Rock n Roll was going through a syrupy sweet phase - Beach Boys and "fun" songs. The R&B was not being heard as much as it would until a few years later.

I also did not get the impression that they were looking down at artists like Gene Vincent - quite the opposite.   I felt they were trying to show what the subtle influences may have been.

Subject: RE: BBC2/PBS Sept 26 No Direction Home
From: Roger the Skiffler
Date: 27 Sep 05 - 11:24 AM

As someone who knows the early Dylan but not a lot else, (sorry, LH!) I found it interesting, nice to see Dave Van Ronk, Maria Muldaur, the Weavers and Sonny and Brownie.
RtS

Subject: RE: BBC2/PBS Sept 26 No Direction Home
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 28 Sep 05 - 11:23 AM

Bob Dylan and Joan Baez singing together really was pretty dire. Some voices just don't gop together too well. I understood why he didn't invite her up to sing with him when he had the choice.

Subject: RE: BBC2/PBS Sept 26 No Direction Home
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 28 Sep 05 - 12:05 PM

This documentary gives a look at the adversarial environment in which interviews were conducted and Dylan's public persona was formed. The patronizing tone of the interviewer in one case got him a smart-ass answer from Dylan that he deserved. Wanna bet that wasn't the only time such an exchange happened?

SRS

Subject: RE: BBC2/PBS Sept 26 No Direction Home
From: The Shambles
Date: 28 Sep 05 - 12:36 PM

It is hard to remenber just how seriously things were taken back then.

A good example was the rather intense young man who was asking Bob Dylan about the deep meaning of the cover photo for Highway 61 and thought the choice of clothing for it - was of great significance.

Even when he was told by the man who should know - he was not prepared to accept the answer.

Subject: RE: BBC2/PBS Sept 26 No Direction Home
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 28 Sep 05 - 12:49 PM

Bob Dylan and Joan Baez singing together really was pretty dire. Some voices just don't go together too well. I understood why he didn't invite her up to sing with him when he had the choice.

Subject: RE: BBC2/PBS Sept 26 No Direction Home
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 28 Sep 05 - 01:13 PM

Sorry about that delayed douhle post - my broadband connection went down after I pushed the button the first time, and I thought it hadn't gone through.
......................

It occurred to me that there's something rather Doctor Whoish about the Dylan persona. You know, the way every now and again when you were used to one Doctor Who and enjoying what he was doing, he'd have a regeneration, and a new version would take over. (And in fact there was one point in the film where Dylan was actually talking in those kind of terms, about getting a new Dylan because the old one was wearing out.)

And, as with Doctor Who, some people would get angry and miss the one they'd lost, and resent the new one as not being a patch on the old ones. And others who joined the saga later would see the one they came in for as the real one, and the earlier ones as inferior.

I've got my favourite versions too. But pretty well all of the Dylans bring something I value, and we wouldn't have that without losing the earlier ones.

Bob Dylan the Time Lord... Actually he'd be a pretty good Doctor Who, if they ever decide it's time for an American one.

Subject: RE: BBC2/PBS Sept 26 No Direction Home
From: The Shambles
Date: 29 Sep 05 - 02:22 AM

One of the highlights of the current BBC drive to rehash all the (even tenuous) Dylan related clips - well those they have not intentionally set fire to - was the Sings Dylan one on BBC 4.

It was Lulu - with her boy and girl dancers - singing Tambourine Man. Complete with tamborines and a snazzy dance routine.

It was so awful - it was good.

Which was a bit like the singing together of Bob and Joan Baez. At one point in that song - they were so out of tune with each other - it sounded really good and probably would heve been impossible to create intentionally.

Any thoughts on the Madman On Castle Street programme?

Subject: RE: BBC2/PBS Sept 26 No Direction Home
From: katlaughing
Date: 29 Sep 05 - 02:38 AM

We taped it and went to bed, so haven't watched all of it, yet. I have found myself wondering what Rick Fielding had to say about Dylan, though, so did a little research. Here's one of his many comments:

Subject: RE: Dylan overrated?You've got to be kidding
From: Rick Fielding - PM
Date: 17 Aug 01 - 01:11 AM

AIEEEE CHEEWAWAAA! NO, NO, NO, and No again (just for emphasis!!)

I NEVER EVER referred to the songs mentioned as examples of Dylan's fine picking.

When I saw him live at Massey Hall here in Toronto he was doing his "It's all right Ma" etc. repertoire. By then he'd settled into a totally minimalist approach, doing virtually everything in Dropped D, with a very rudimentary chord strum.

The songs that impressed me (guitar wise) were on his FIRST ALBUM ONLY!

Listen to it and you'll hear very solid fast flat-picked runs. Strong driving rhythm, workmanlike (but accurate) slide guitar. A great riff (possibly lifted from The Everlys "Wake Up Little Suzie"). A D9th used ONLY by Dave Van Ronk at the time (it WAS 1961!) and one of the most inventive Eb chords I could imagine. Certainly MUCH better than the other singer-songwriters.

He never again came close to playing like that, but I gather that was by choice. Get the FIRST album. You'll see what I mean.

P.S. His tuning sucked though, and his strings must have been a hundred years old!

Cheers

From the same thread:

From: Rick Fielding - PM
Date: 17 Aug 01 - 11:36 AM

Yeah Whistle, I was about 14, and it simply blew me away. I WILL say however, that I never thought Dylan's playing was on the same planet as SOME of the trad artists I'd heard by then, merely that when I read the initial reviews of that album it appeared to me that NONE of the reviewers seemed even remotely aware of the techniques he was using.

For example, Bill Monroe's (not anybody else's) patented yodel on Roy Acuff's Freight train Blues.

The fast flatpicking (in two different styles) on the former song and on Joe Williams' Highway 51.

The full SIX STRING chords on House of the Rising Sun. Dave Van Ronk's arrangement no doubt, but Van Ronk simply didn't DRIVE it like that....maybe nobody has since.

One of the things that I remember from that time was the almost (almost hell!) religious fervour that overcame me when I heard people like Dylan, Dock Boggs, Estil C. Ball, Fred Gerlach, Leadbelly, Bukka White, etc.

It was quite different from what I felt upon hearing The Weavers, Pete S. Paxton, Ochs, etc. that was more cerebral.

A perfect example was an album by Paul Clayton. (Dylan's friend) Clayton sung and played the songs with some skill and certainly a reverence for tradition....Dylan just ripped them apart with a "fuck you" attitude....but he still had discipline and timing to go with all that drive.

Cheers

Subject: RE: BBC2/PBS Sept 26 No Direction Home
From: The Shambles
Date: 29 Sep 05 - 05:18 AM

I have found myself wondering what Rick Fielding had to say about Dylan

Does anyone wonder what Bob Dylan had to say about Rick Fielding? Perhaps the fact that Rick presumably paid to go and see Bob Dylan in concert - is of most note?

Not really too surprising that Dylan's rather sloppy technical approach to guitar playing and casual regard for being exactly in tune would not appeal to a skilled guitar player like Rick Fielding. But there is no accounting for taste.

But Bob Dylan is not a name well-known all over the world because of his guitar playing or indeed his singing. And certainly not for his harmonica skills. But he must have had something though.......

Subject: RE: BBC2/PBS Sept 26 No Direction Home
From: catspaw49
Date: 29 Sep 05 - 05:55 AM

Subject: RE: BBC2/PBS Sept 26 No Direction Home
From: The Shambles - PM
Date: 28 Sep 05 - 12:36 PM

It is hard to remenber just how seriously things were taken back then.

A good example was the rather intense young man who was asking Bob Dylan about the deep meaning of the cover photo for Highway 61 and thought the choice of clothing for it - was of great significance.

Even when he was told by the man who should know - he was not prepared to accept the answer.

******************************************************************

LMAO!!!! PUH-LEEZE!!!!

Simply unbelievable...............

The irony in that post is so overwhelming that words to express it escape me. I can hardly wait for the next chapter in "The Pot Calls the Kettle Black."

Spaw

Subject: RE: BBC2/PBS Sept 26 No Direction Home
From: GUEST
Date: 29 Sep 05 - 08:15 AM

Ron, you are dead wrong about what was on the pop charts at the time Dylan was coming up. Google "pop charts 1963" and you will see there was plenty of great music being played on the radio at the time.

Subject: RE: BBC2/PBS Sept 26 No Direction Home
From: WFDU - Ron Olesko
Date: 29 Sep 05 - 10:07 AM

Guest, who said anything about 1963?    I guess I wasn't clear, or misunderstood your earlier comment.   The clips they showed in the Dylan movie from the late 1950's showed an era where the music had yet to break the "color" line.   The music was syrupy sweet. Do a Google search on "Pop charts 1959", or 1960 or even 1961. You will see the music SLOWLY start to change and you are right - by 1963 there was a lot of great music happening. But by 1963 the change was happening. In 1961 when Dylan hit New York City, the folk scene was beginning to blossom - and I feel it was largely due to a backlash against the inspid songs that were on the pop charts.

Don't get me wrong, there was some great music around at the time - but those weren't the songs you would hear all the time on AM radio. You had to do some searching to find the good music.

Subject: RE: BBC2/PBS Sept 26 No Direction Home
From: katlaughing
Date: 29 Sep 05 - 02:15 PM

Who gives a flying frel if Dylan ever asked about Rick.

Here, let me repeat something for you, since repetition is what you're all about, besides trolling:

Listen to it and you'll hear very solid fast flat-picked runs. Strong driving rhythm, workmanlike (but accurate) slide guitar. A great riff (possibly lifted from The Everlys "Wake Up Little Suzie"). A D9th used ONLY by Dave Van Ronk at the time (it WAS 1961!) and one of the most inventive Eb chords I could imagine. Certainly MUCH better than the other singer-songwriters.

Subject: RE: BBC2/PBS Sept 26 No Direction Home
From: GUEST,Whistle Stop
Date: 29 Sep 05 - 02:21 PM

Here I am, patiently reading through the thread, and I come upon an old Rick Fielding posting responding to one of my own ("Yeah, Whistle, etc..."). Just to correct any mistaken impressions, that was part of a thread where Rick had maintained that Dylan was originally a pretty good guitar player; I dissented, and Rick responded by basically saying that Dylan may not have been stellar by today's standards, but by the standards of many of the people who were part of his scene at the time, he wasn't bad.

Now that we've cleared that up... I bought the DVD last week, and watched the whole thing over the weekend. Loved it, but then I've been a huge admirer of Dylan for most of my life. What amazes me is that, after all this time, he still inspires more passion and controversy (witness the multiple threads growing to great length on this forum) than anyone else I can think of.

Have to agree with McGrath about the Baez/Dylan duets, though; they never did work for me. I kind of think people liked the idea of those two singing together more than the result.

Subject: RE: BBC2/PBS Sept 26 No Direction Home
From: catspaw49
Date: 29 Sep 05 - 05:15 PM

Another thing to clear up as well........Dylan WAS regarded for his harp playing, again primarily because of the innovative style and drive. We have a long thread on that one somewhere as well.

Spaw

Subject: RE: BBC2/PBS Sept 26 No Direction Home
From: smiling scribe
Date: 29 Sep 05 - 05:36 PM

I was young and free and complete with duffle coat and hippy longish hair as I floated off to see Bob Dylan at Sheffield City Hall.

I only knew I loved being there up in the gods watching this lonesome fluffy haired man and then what a breathe of great rock n roll rhythmn, when the Band came on.

I just love his words, his music and the fact he was there when electric music was becoming so popular and good. That is my feeling and just simple. I love the feeling of music and Bob Dylan filled up my feeling of the love of music.

Subject: RE: BBC2/PBS Sept 26 No Direction Home
From: GUEST
Date: 29 Sep 05 - 08:53 PM

Bullshit the color lines hadn't started to disintegrate. Sarah Vaughn, Sam Cooke, Fats Domino, Chuck Berry, the Drifters, the Coasters, Ray Charles--ALL were in the charts at the time.

Problem with you Ron, is you love to play the expert about things you don't know about, and state your opinion as fact. It was the kids themselves that desegregated pop music in the 50s. So I don't know what river in Egypt you are floating down with that "pop music was a wasteland in the 50s" crap.

Not all white kids were listening to Pat Boone and Connie Francis. And to suggest they were simply demonstrates your ignorance, particularly about race and music in the 50s and 60s.

Here are just a few songs from the 1959 Top 100:

Almost Grown - Chuck Berry (#32)

Along Came Jones - The Coasters (#9)

Back In The USA - Chuck Berry (#37)

I Loves You Porgy - Nina Simone (#18)

I Want To Walk You Home - Fats Domino (#8)

I'm Moving On - Ray Charles (#40)

Lonely Teardrops - Jackie Wilson (#7)

Only Sixteen - Sam Cooke (#28)

Say Man - Bo Diddley (#20)

There Goes My Baby - The Drifters (#2)

And that was just the black folks.

Subject: RE: BBC2/PBS Sept 26 No Direction Home
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 29 Sep 05 - 09:09 PM

Madhouse on Castle Street? A very peculiar programme - as if they were intentionally trying to ramble around the story without telling it, and without even playing the sound tapes they had managed to get hold of.

Maybe the idea was to echo the way Bob Dylan in the play wandered round in the background, singing songs more or less at random. At least that's how I remember the play.

And I suppose the showing of fairly arbitary newsreel clips from the time, mostly about the weather, may have been a way of commenting on the way that the BBC decided to hold on to these, while destroying the tape of the play.

But the oddest thing was that there was no attempt at all to give any information about how it was that the decision was made to destroy the tapes six years later, at a time when Dylan was at the height of his fame. Who dunnit? Why did they do it? What was the actual story? (It's part of a bigger story about all kinds of other remarkable TV material which was arbitrarily wiped around the same time.)

Subject: RE: BBC2/PBS Sept 26 No Direction Home
From: GUEST
Date: 29 Sep 05 - 09:22 PM

And of course, the late 50s still were nursing along a brilliant rockabilly scene, the ascendancy of doo wop, girl groups, and kick ass jazz with the likes of Sonny Rollins and Max Roach.

Hardly a musical wasteland.

The crap music referred to on the Dylan show might have been a reflection of what Dylan was listening to, but he doesn't--can't, in fact--speak for what all the young people in the late 50s were listening to on commercial radio stations trying to kill off rock and roll and the obliteration of the color lines in US society.

Subject: RE: BBC2/PBS Sept 26 No Direction Home
From: GUEST
Date: 29 Sep 05 - 09:27 PM

Duane Eddy. The Venturers.

Subject: RE: BBC2/PBS Sept 26 No Direction Home
From: GUEST
Date: 29 Sep 05 - 09:37 PM

The Nashville Sound of Patsy Cline!

Pop folk hybrids like the Everlys,

And I forgot to mention Eddie Cochran with the instrumental rockers above.

The Bossa Nova and Cuban Bolero! And lots of other hot and cool Latin music that influenced all kinds of music of the era, from Patsy to the Drifters.

Subject: RE: BBC2/PBS Sept 26 No Direction Home
From: GUEST,Walczak
Date: 29 Sep 05 - 11:21 PM

Critics are nothing but frustrated musician/artist wannabes. This crazy thing we call the internet allows your distorted notions to look better in the printed form. You who've never done nothin, you who build the big wind tunnels....Be glad you live in a time when a great artist plied his trade. His songs are nothing more than musings yet you want them to be more. Give everyone a break.

Subject: RE: BBC2/PBS Sept 26 No Direction Home
From: catspaw49
Date: 29 Sep 05 - 11:34 PM

Guest........The special suggested that was what Dylan and other white kids listened to in Hibbing, Minnesota........and that may well be the truth. Ever been to Hibbing? I have and it's much like the town I grew up in in Ohio and many of the artists you list were not heard much around those parts either! When we moved to Columbus, not exactly a cultural tour de force either, at least my exposure was greatly increased.

I thought they made the point well about what it was like for a kid like Bob to grow up in a place like that. Like they say about my hometown, it's a good place to be from. Funny thing though, as I get older I am drawn back there more and more.

Spaw

Subject: RE: BBC2/PBS Sept 26 No Direction Home
From: WFDU - Ron Olesko
Date: 29 Sep 05 - 11:40 PM

Guest, you conveniently left out other names who appeared on the pop charts that year with big hits - names like Fabian, Anita Bryant, Paul Anka, Connie Francis, the Chipmunks, the Morman Tabernacle Choir, Pat Boone, Teresa Brewer, Andy Williams, Perry Como and The Exotic Sounds Of Martin Denny And His Orchestra. I guess we should add Frank Sinatra to the list since he had a big hit with "High Hopes" that year.   1959 saw Elvis in the army, Jerry Lee Lewis all but banned from radio, Chuck Berry ended up getting arrested, Little Richard found religion, and the music industry was pushing teen idols.

You are right though, in all honesty I should not have said that it was an era "where the music had yet to break the "color" line." That was a stupid thing for me to say.   Of course there were black artists on the charts, but if you look at the numbers on the pop charts (the big commercial hits) - the balance was not yet there. You mentioned 10 - out of the top 100. To be fair, the numbers were actually higher than that, but again the balance was not there. Commercial radio felt "safer" pushing the other artists.   You are correct, it was the kids who EVENTUALLY desegregated the music charts.

Bob Dylan would be another important link in changing the music - and that was the point of the discussion and how he helped us grow away from some of the sounds of the 50's. He was a link on the chain, as important as artists like Chuck Berry or the great Motown artists who were starting to appear and the dozens of others who were part of changing the music scene.

You mention some great names, but I NEVER said the MUSIC in the 1950's was a "musical wasteland". I did say that the pop charts had more than their share of syrupy sweet songs at the time and I stand by that.

Guest, I'm not sure why you had to turn this personal. You made very good points but you did not have to sour them with cheap shots. If you are going to insult people, at least have the guts to do it with a name instead of being another anonymous guest. I have no problem with people posting anonymously, but it is cowardice to use that shield when you insult someone. I have no problem with being proven wrong or being told that I said something out of context. I do think you are better than taking a shot and then hiding behind your anonymity. You are more intelligent than that. I know you feel that you can't get hurt when you hide, but you were raised better than that.

Subject: RE: BBC2/PBS Sept 26 No Direction Home
From: The Shambles
Date: 30 Sep 05 - 09:45 AM

But the oddest thing was that there was no attempt at all to give any information about how it was that the decision was made to destroy the tapes six years later, at a time when Dylan was at the height of his fame. Who dunnit? Why did they do it? What was the actual story?

The answer my friend is blowing in the wind.

You have been provided with all the information that they are at liberty to tell you - you have no right to this information or to even ask for it. For to provide you with this information surely risk will bringing the whole edifice crashing down.


And Einstien was crap wind-surfer and couldn't play the harmonica to save his life - so my maths teacher told me - and he should know. All this can all be found in a old forum thread - so there is no point trying to have any fresh discussions in new threads........

However, the old threads will probably have been subject to imposed closure and you will not be able to contribute to these - unless you ask some of your fellow posters nicely in a PM - to re-open them for you - but such is life.

Subject: RE: BBC2/PBS Sept 26 No Direction Home
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 30 Sep 05 - 07:50 PM

Aaaargh...... We should have known Shambles would wrench the thread in that particular direction:

Oh Lord, if dreams were only real
I'd have my hands on that wooden wheel
And with all my heart I would turn her 'round...

Subject: RE: BBC2/PBS Sept 26 No Direction Home
From: GUEST
Date: 30 Sep 05 - 10:46 PM

I grew up in Minnesota, and grew up in a home with older siblings who are the same age as Dylan.

Dylan himself mentioned listening to the radio late at night. Those weren't local stations he was referring to--in northern Minnesota, that meant listening to one of the 50-100,000 watt stations from far beyond Minnesota's borders--KC, Memphis or Little Rock stations. They weren't playing all that white bread suburban crap. Dylan said he was listening to it--I listened to it. So why it wasn't on Ron's and catspaw's radar, I don't know.

As I also mentioned, we listened to music that wasn't played on conservative mainstream radio (those Pat Boone and Connie Francis stations) in record shops.

I don't know that Dylan is or was "a genius" or even a great songwriter, to be honest. And I don't think anyone else can really say. Time and history will answer those sorts of questions. The reality is, Dylan's music appealed to a very small segment of the American music market: the children of the liberal and intellectual elites, who had formed a NY music scene in the Village in the 50s and 60s. The whole Dylan phenomenon was very much centered in a time and place. His appeal seems to have been pretty much only to his own generation, as the current generation has proven by it's inattention to Dylan's work. Not too many covers of Dylan songs are showing up on the current generation's albums or their radar. I just don't know how relevant his music will be in a historic sense. Right now, I'd have to say "not very, apparently". Which shouldn't surprise anyone really, as Dylan's music isn't danceable in the least. And much of it isn't really all that singable either.

Subject: RE: BBC2/PBS Sept 26 No Direction Home
From: The Shambles
Date: 01 Oct 05 - 05:40 AM

Joan Baez - uncensored Dylan movie

The rude words that Joan was allowed to inflict upon the BBC viewers - were considered too shocking for some PBS broadcasts.

You may well now feel that you are not entitled to know the reasons for such actions - I hope you may agree that you are still entitled to carry-on asking for them?

Subject: RE: BBC2/PBS Sept 26 No Direction Home
From: The Shambles
Date: 01 Oct 05 - 06:41 AM

Is anyone in the U.S.A. actively fighting this censorship?

Subject: RE: BBC2/PBS Sept 26 No Direction Home
From: Peter T.
Date: 01 Oct 05 - 09:18 AM

thanks, kat for reposting those remarks of Rick's, I had never seen them before.   I think Rick changed his mind a bit about some of the later stuff -- I remember when we first heard Blind Willie McTell together -- I had bought the official bootleg with it on, and brought it to a lesson -- and Rick was blown away by it, and started doing it himself in concerts. What I think really got to him was how Dylan had once again taken yer basic chords (St. James Infirmary) and built a whole new house on it.

Whatever you think of Rick's postings, he was -- so far as I know and have read -- the only person who ever talked about Dylan's guitar playing or style, ever!!!   After knowing Rick for awhile, I became struck by this everywhere -- almost no one ever talks about the technical aspects of people's playing. No one ever talks about where the sound comes from -- which you would think would be important.

In Dylan's case, Rick and I used to talk about other elements of his playing.   One of the most interesting was the way in which he used to milk a few things for all they were worth. I remember we spent one evening working through "I Was Young When I Left Home" (the early song that was bundled into one of the recent albums).   A good example Rick and I often talked about was Blood on the Tracks, where Dylan used open D down into the ground!!! (and retransposed the songs into standard tuning). He was also impressed that at least later in his career Dylan seemed to be capable of doing difficult transposing on the fly.

We had one conversation about bass runs. Rick had read somewhere that Dylan had learned from Lonnie Johnson (a hero of Rick's), and he thought that maybe it was from Johnson that Dylan learned the descending runs that pervade and structure songs like Sad Eyed Lady and lots of the harmonica breaks.

It was interesting to watch Dylan playing on the film, in the early songs he does nothing with his right hand except the most rudimentary flatpick strums. His left hand is doing all the work.

We did a whole radio show on Dylan (which I think is on tape somewhere) where some of this came up. What I was struck by when we listened to some of the Cynthia Gooding show and songs like Pawn in their Game was how incredibly powerful Dylan was as a protest singer. He can deny it, but it is so obvious why people like Baez and Seeger and the folkies were so disappointed when he turned his back on political songs (and they were political, why Dylan keeps denying it is just one of those mysteries). He wrote them like an avenging fury: you can see why they all said, more, more, more!!!


Just some random thoughts/memories.

yours,

Peter T.

Subject: RE: BBC2/PBS Sept 26 No Direction Home
From: Jeri
Date: 01 Oct 05 - 10:02 AM

Peter, that show on Dylan was one of the best Acoustic Workshops ever.

Subject: RE: BBC2/PBS Sept 26 No Direction Home
From: greg stephens
Date: 01 Oct 05 - 10:21 AM

Dylan's pretty exclusive use of the flatpick in his early acoustic phase is surely connected with his justification of wanting a band to sing with, as interviewed in the Scorses film. I cant remember the exact words he used, but it was something along the lines of "wanting more power under the song". This is what he would have got from the flatpick, in his solo performer pre 65 phase. He was prepared to play with his fingers if he wanted to be gentle(eg Corinna Corinna on Freewheeling), but broadly speaking he was a savage flatpicker, which is what you need to be if you are going to do songs like Hard Rain. You only have to look at the way he held his body, and face, while singing, to see that a flatpick was a necessity. (Perhaps "necessity" is a bit strong, Leadbelly did it with steel finger picks and a 12-string, but the flatpick is the easier option).
   The integration of the physicality of the performance with his mind was astonishingly dealt with by the Alan Ginsberg description of the column of his breath, a very interesting attempt to put something very inexplicable into words.
    AS a relevant point, contrast Dylan's wearing of boots with Baez's occasional barefeet. You need some weight on your feet to develop a style like Dylan's. I ahve always found it difficult to play good backing guitar when wearing shoes, I nearly always wear boots for flatpicking, though I can fingerpick in carpet slippers at home.

Subject: RE: BBC2/PBS Sept 26 No Direction Home
From: Peter T.
Date: 01 Oct 05 - 04:48 PM

Thanks, greg, great comment.   I hadn't thought about it, or connected it to that remark about power, but I guess you could have predicted the waywardness of Dylan from the flatpick use so early. It is also interesting that, in the early parts of the film, he always plays absolutely rock solid, no frills, nothing. One wonders if someone told him that was what to do -- the natural tendency early on is to try and do flashy things. That is one of the most impressive things to me about Dylan from the film: he never plays flashy, it gives him that rock solid quality, as if he were much more mature than he was.

yours,

Peter T.

Subject: RE: BBC2/PBS Sept 26 No Direction Home
From: Leadfingers
Date: 01 Oct 05 - 05:14 PM

Sometimes I am glad I dont have a television !!

Subject: RE: BBC2/PBS Sept 26 No Direction Home
From: greg stephens
Date: 01 Oct 05 - 05:21 PM

Peter T: I just listened to the first Dylan Lp for interest. You will here a much greater range of guitar licks and stuff there, he is fooling around with fingerpicking, blues, slide etc. But as you say, he settled on solid flat picking as what he wanted under his "big songs" of the second two records, generally speaking. He learnt like a sponge, mastered everything, and then generally moved on if it didnt suit him. The first LP shows him outplaying and out singing his contemporaries in about as many styles as there are songs on the record. Nauseating little shit, wasn't he??
   I dont mean outplaying everyone in terms of technique: he would just learn enough Travis picking, or whatever, to use effectively. He was never a guitar nerd. But he played evrything he did with great power and commitment in the 61-66 period, and it shows.

Subject: RE: BBC2/PBS Sept 26 No Direction Home
From: The Shambles
Date: 03 Oct 05 - 12:00 PM

It was interesting that the 'serious' journalists at that time seem puzzled that young people would wish to listen to an entire evening of words and poetry. Or that these 'teenagers' were capable of doing so.

Subject: RE: BBC2/PBS Sept 26 No Direction Home - blues
From: GUEST,Guest
Date: 10 Oct 05 - 02:19 PM

Because Izzy Young is the one who says Dylan's homage to bluesmen Mance Kipscomb and Blind Arvella Gray may be fabricated and not Dylan himself, I do not necessarily take it as gospel. I believe Dylan heard these guys and may well have extrapolated elements of their influence.

I notice that a reissue of Blind Arvella Gray's music came out just this summer and I've been meaning to buy it at Amazon.

Subject: RE: BBC2/PBS Sept 26 No Direction Home
From: keberoxu
Date: 26 Jun 20 - 01:27 PM

This documentary on Bob Dylan is now being credited
with a renewal of interest in
traditional music recordings by
John Jacob Niles,
who is name-checked and briefly filmed in the documentary.